The haute bourgeois morality of a besieged UMNO.

Never before in the history of UMNO, have the events within the Pan Islamic Malaysian Party( PAS) – Pa( Parti), Alif(Islam) Sin( SeMalaya) become the singular obsession of UMNO. This is an indication of a beleaguered UMNO which sees that its own survival is dependant on someone else.

But this shouldn't be surprising to anyone since UMNO's own philosophy is founded on treating the giving and receiving of subsidies as a way of life.

Hence when one blogger infamous for his piggy-fying others in his very rare sober moments or perhaps during his alcohol induced hallucinations exclaimed Thank God, or Dieu merci in French, monsieur Husam Musa lost, I, a full pledged UMNO member am tremendously disturbed.

You see, this confirmed what I have been saying all along, a Malay even a state of drunken stupor can still invoke the name of GOD. It is eating of pork that is an absolute taboo.

What was the singular clarion call of UMNO all this while to bind the thoughts of the Malay? Well, it used to be KETUANAN MELAYU. Ketuanan Melayu was just treated as something fashionable by the ruling elite to ensure obedience from the Malay populace. Viewed from the angle of vogue-ness, KETUANA MELAYU as an extraordinary means of unifying the Malay is just haute bourgeois morality.

It is simply the manufactured set of values by the elite to declare their fight to secure shared ideals. Of course, the idea of ensuring the primacy of Malay interests resonates and will resonate well with the Malay petit bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

But whether the high-class Malay's (as opposed to us the rest, who are sojourners of 2-star accommodations) fight for the supremacy of Malay interests is genuine is another question. Like much else, it has to be subjected to the test of life.

Your declarations of Ketuanan Melayu are a question of fact and therefore must be supported by irrefutable proofs.

I wish to point out two factual observations to refute and expose this pompous declaration.

1. One, the recently published Forbes list of the richest people in Malaysia. A close look at the list will establish this irrefutable fact- you don't have to be Malay to be rich. This destroys the claim on the primacy of Malay interests. Indeed such findings establish the falsity and the duplicity of fighting for primacy of Malay interests for if that has been the principal motivation of UMNO, then the number of richest people in Malaysia, should have been dominated by the Malay.
   
2. Second, it is a fact that the GINI coefficient of Malaysia is the worse in this region. What this means, is the income distribution in Malaysia is the worse. But wait, what is even more disturbing, is that the GINI coefficient within ethnic groups is worse among Malays. This means, that inequality of incomes is the worse within the Malay race. This fact destroys the claim that UMNO fights for Ketuanan Melayu.
   

What the leadership is fighting for is their own ketuanan. The concept of ketuanan Melayu is therefore just another facet of the morality of the high-class Malay to ensure their own ketuanan over the 2 star Malays.

Gini Coefficienst by countries.

Country	HDI	GINI
Singapore	0.902	42.5
Malaysia	0.793	49.2
Thailand	0.768	43.2
Philippines	0.753	46.1
Indonesia	0.692	34.3
Vietnam	0.691	36.1
Cambodia	0.568	40.4
Laos	0.534	37.0

Source: UNDP Human Development Report

A commonly-used measure of development is the Human Development Index (HDI). It is devised and calculated annually by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is preferable to a simple measure of per capita income because it takes into account other factors as well, including life expectancy and other measures of general 'well-being'. In the UNDP's 2004 Human Development Report, Malaysia ranked 59 out of 177 countries. With an HDI score of 0.793, Malaysia is just on the threshold of the UNDP's own definition of a 'Highly Developed Country', which is a score of 0.800 or above.

But when we look at Malaysia's international position in terms of individual inequality, the position is quite different. According to the latest internationally comparable data from the World Bank, individual inequality in Malaysia (as measured by the common Gini coefficient) is the second worst in all of the Asian countries for which data is available. Only Papua New Guinea ranks worse. In fact, out of 127 countries for the World Bank provides data, Malaysia ranks 101 in terms of the Gini coefficient – the commonest measure of inequality. Aside from Papua New Guinea, the only countries in the world with worse individual inequality than Malaysia are in Central and South America – a region of notoriously high inequality – and some areas of sub-Saharan Africa such as South Africa and Zimbabwe.

As a rule, countries with HIGHER levels of human development have LOWER levels of inequality; Malaysia thus stands out as an exception as a country with relatively high human development but also with relatively HIGH INEQUALITY. As Table 1 shows, Malaysia's Gini coefficient is the highest in all of ASEAN. According to the CIA World Factbook- the Malaysian GINI in 2002 was 46.1, still the worse in ASEAN.

Within the Malay community, income inequality is the greatest. In a study done by one A.H.Roslan , the Gini coefficients by race were are as follows:-

Gini coefficients by Race.

Year	Overal Gini	Malay	Chinese	Indian
1990	0.446	0.428	0.423	0.394
1995	0.4560	n.a.	n.a.	n.a
1997	0.4586	0.4495	0.4180	0.4092

Source: A.H.Roslan.

The above Table shows, income inequality within the Malay race has worsened since 1990. Smaller coefficient means there is greater equality. As the coefficient tends to1, inequality is greater.

Hence, seen from these two aspects, there is nothing left to salvage from the concept of Ketuanan Melayu. UMNO cannot claim it represents the Malays anymore as the results of the 12^th GE show. I want to remind readers the following. UMNO has over 3 million members. In the 12^th GE, UMNO candidates secured only 2 million votes and not all came from Malay voters. That would mean that over 1 million UMNO members DID NOT vote for UMNO candidates. We must also remind ourselves, that there were 5.7 million Malay voters during the 12^th GE. If I am being charitable and accept those 2 million votes UMNO candidates received came from purely Malay voters, which would still mean that 3.7 Malays refused to vote for UMNO candidates. So, which ketuanan are you speaking about?

What is the next clarion call to salvage the survival of the ruling elite? The present haute bourgeois morality as espoused by Mr. Babiman and beleaguered UMNO leaders is Malay Unity. We shall talk about this later. It is nothing more than the last life jacket for a drowning elite. That is why someone is saying Dieu merci- monsieur Husam Musa lost!